1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an automatic document feeding apparatus, especially a feeding apparatus having an improved separation mechanism utilized in the feeding path.
2. Background Description
Scanner devices have been broadly employed to the image processing industry. The scanners can generally be categorized to two types, which are sheet-fed scanners and flatbed scanners. However, if there are many documents containing mass papers to be necessarily scanned, it would be difficult to employ a flatbed scanner to do the job. In this case, an automatic document feeder (ADF) is utilized in a flatbed scanner. The ADF is able to feed papers one by one to the flatbed scanner.
As shown in FIG. 1, an automatic document feeder 1 has an upper body 11 and a lower body 13. A feeding path 10 is located between the upper body 11 and the lower body 13. Main rollers 16, 20 and the auxiliary rollers 14, 18 further move a document along the feeding path 10. The feeding path 10 is formed by an inner shell 102 and an outer shell 104. The feeding path further contains a scanning area 12 which is an opening formed in the bottom of the outer shell 104. By the main rollers 16, 20 and the auxiliary rollers 14, 18, the document 34 is moved along the feeding path 10. The document is therefore inputted from the entrance 24 to the feeding path 10, and then be outputted to the exit 26. The automatic document feeder is positioned on the flatbed scanner 40. The scanning area 12 is located exactly on the image reading device of the flatbed scanner 40. When the document 34 is passed through the scanning area 12, the flatbed scanner will scan the document 34.
In the real using environment, the document 34 is occasionally jammed in the feeding path 10. In this case, the automatic document feeder is able to be separated to two parts such as an upper body and a lower body, along the separation axle 28, in order to clear the jammed document. However, referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, if the jammed area is near the entrance 12 or the scanning area 12, it would be easier to remove the jammed document since there are lots spaces to clear the document. But if the jammed area is near the exit 26 or the separation axle 28, it would be very difficult to remove the jammed document since the space left there is tight.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an automatic document feeding apparatus for automatically feeding documents into the feeding path, which provides larger spaces for removing jammed documents in the feeding path.